3 Mindset Shifts for Nonprofit Leadership Teams
Here are 3 important mindset shifts that can help strengthen your leadership team’s clarity, connection and alignment – and reduce unnecessary stress.
Shift 1 – From Boundaries to Givens
The concept of boundaries – determining what we will and won’t allow – is important for personal clarity and accountability, but the reality is that boundaries need to be regularly guarded and reinforced. This means team members are frequently anticipating being “pushed” or feeling the need to defend their decisions, their teams, and their takes.
Instead of relying on individual leadership team members to set and constantly reinforce boundaries, work together as a team to determine guiding “givens” that ensure shared understanding in advance. Examples:
“Our teams are already at full capacity, so any new work we take on needs to replace a different project or be hired out to a consultant.”
“We have separate, designated times for discussion and making decisions.”
“New program ideas get considered collectively – not as one-offs – so that we can make thoughtful choices about where to invest our resources.
Shift 2 – From Binary to Spectrum
Feeling like there are only two possible paths forward – yes or no, good or bad, now or never – is a common cause of stress within leadership teams and organizations. Running a complex organization requires more nuance and a way to view decision points as opportunities instead of ultimatums.
As my grandmother says – it’s good to be a girl with options. When you feel that binary thinking bias take hold, try shifting the possible choices into a spectrum of opportunities by transforming the question.
Instead of setting up a binary question that implies we need to take immediate action, like: “is this important to us?”
Ask the question in a way that creates more options, respects your givens, and reduces urgency:
“how important is this to us?” [answer on a scale]
“if we want to pursue this, how or when would we?” [answer with a variety of options]
Shift 3 – From “Above and Beyond” to Appropriate
Leadership teams full of high achievers may have a shared norm of going – and expecting – “above and beyond” when it comes to how they show up. This is especially true in organizations that have named Excellence as a value and commit to upholding it as much as possible.
Here’s the problem: expecting “above and beyond” in all aspects of the work creates a serious capacity challenge because you have unintentionally placed everything at the same level of priority, urgency and importance. When everything must be excellent, we lose perspective on what the real priorities and risks are, which in turn creates a high-pressure environment that leads to undue stress and burnout.
Instead of insisting on “above and beyond” or excellence in everything, enable better strategic conversations about focus, tradeoffs, and where to invest our resources (people and $) by asking questions like:
“What is the appropriate level of effort and investment for this work?”
“How much time feels reasonable to dedicate to this?”
“What does ‘good enough’ look like for this work – and will ‘excellent’ provide enough additional value to justify more time, attention and investment?”
Have you tried any of these mindset shifts with your team? Or, do you have another meaningful mindset shift to share? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.